


Small Favors

by jacquelee



Series: Let's Kill Varrick in as Many Ways as Possible [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 05:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3839017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Firefly crew meets Varrick and Zhu Li. Which has consequences. Part of my ongoing project ‘let’s get rid of Varrick in as many ways as possible, so that Zhu Li can be happy’. :P</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Favors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a challenge at [game of cards](gameofcards.livejournal.com). The goal was to include one of the following five word sets, and since I love challenges I included all of them. :P 
> 
> 1\. Law, report, station, strategy, wave  
> 2\. Entrance, fire, gold, sky, tide  
> 3\. Bottle, evening, jacket, old, tree  
> 4\. Package, pebble, roof, schedule, university  
> 5\. Guide, mistake, rain, robot, violin

Zoe glanced longingly at the entrance of the bar, her hand clutching the bottle of whatever passed for beer in this joint tighter. This evening really wasn’t turning out as good as she would have hoped. 

She had been as happy as any of the crew when Mal announced that they would make a pit stop at this planet based repair station, especially since the station included pretty nice recreational areas, but now she was sure that coming to this bar had been a major mistake. Seriously, she’d rather take anything right now, fire, rain, Reavers, as long as it meant getting out of this conversation. 

But the tides were not in her favor. The sky had been completely blue when they went inside the bar and there weren’t any signs of that changing anytime soon. There wasn’t even something little happening, like pebbles falling on the roof or falling trees. Nothing that could count as a distraction to save her from this nightmare. 

No, she just had to sit this out. So far her strategy had been to mainly just sit there and pretend to listen, but she was more and more compelled to just whip out her gun and end this once and for all. The only reason she was willing to endure this in the first place was because Kaylee had been so happy to find someone to talk to about engineering and looking at her, chattering away on the next table, shooting her a few pleading looks every once in a while, was the only thing that kept her from just shooting this asshole down. 

Really, she thought, there should be a law against people like him. Not that the Serenity crew was very good at following any laws or rules or even just guidelines, but yeah. She tried to distract herself by compiling a report on Serenity’s systems for the Captain in her head, but this guy’s voice was so obnoxious, it penetrated everything and kept her from being able to form even a simple thought. 

Now he gave one of his pretentious little waves and grinned widely. She had no idea what he had been talking about these last few minutes, but it wasn’t like it mattered at all, he just drowned on, enthusiastically as ever, no matter how completely unapproving his audience was of his shenanigans. 

“And then, that one time in university, they changed the schedule far too late and Zhu Li had to leave me for over an hour to pick up a package for me, can you believe that? All the things that could have happened to me in that time, I don’t even want to think about that. But it was obviously the most important package, it was an old golden violin I had bought from someone in Ba Sing Se, so I couldn’t just let them send it back, but I also needed Zhu Li by my side because I was working on my biggest robot project then, oh, I can’t tell you how hard that decision was.” 

The best Zoe could muster was a raised eyebrow, while her hand twitched more and more. This guy was the most obnoxious, pretentious, abusive asshole she had ever met and she had met her share of abusive assholes, on both sides of what was now considered the law. She gritted her teeth and just hoped that Mal and the others would come soon to announce that they were leaving this planet. She just wished they could take Zhu Li with them, the life, or rather lack of it, she had with this abusive bastard was so awful, it made her heart ache for her. 

But there wasn’t really anything she could do, was there? Her thoughts came back to the gun, but no, that would be a mess, right? Kind of. The Captain hated messes. Well, not really. Just the ones he didn’t start himself. And even then not very. 

Still trying to figure something out and trying desperately to tune out the asshole's pretentious recounts of his abusive behavior, Zoe wasn’t very attentive to the rest of the bar. But her training never failed her so a sudden gunshot made her jump off her seat and finally whip out her own gun. It took her only milliseconds to realize that the shooter had been River, who evidently had just entered the bar and now nonchalantly lowered her gun and strode towards Zoe with a little smile on her face, as if she had just done her a big favor – which if Zoe was quite honest she had. 

“See, now he doesn’t bother you anymore.” 

Kaylee and Zhu Li were rushing towards them, Zhu Li in obvious distress over the huge pool of blood that was now forming on Varricks jacket, right where his heart was. He died very unremarkably, falling off his chair without even saying another word, thank the universe for small favors. Zhu Li knelt down next to the dying Varrick, tears on her face. Kaylee tried to comfort her new friend as best as possible. 

Zoe just shrugged, took some money out and put it on the bar to pay for the bartender’s troubles – and silence – took her own jacket and turned towards Kaylee and River. 

“Well, good riddance. Let’s go. I’m sure the Captain won’t mind having a second engineer on board.”


End file.
